Strange sndstat please help

Please,what are all possibilities for "No such device" when doing catdev-sndstat ?

I am not a newbie, and I think there are no problems with hardware and no troubles with kernel, because I only switched to a new hard disk and a fresh instalation with the very same kernel from the old hard disk where music was playing just fine.

At boot time my AWE64 is detected as es1371 (Ensoniq, soundblaster AWE64). Modules embedded into the kernel, and the same kernel was in the old HD where audio was working well. I even recompiled the kernel with the same config. It didn't help.

I get no sound at all from my loudspeakers; and catdev-sndstat says No such device. However, I have sndstat indev. I did a proper makedev.

Also, permisions are: crw-rw-rw- 1 root audio 14, 6 Aug 22 11:13dev-sndstat crw-rw-rw- 1 root audio 14, 3 Aug 22 11:13dev-dsp

I set permisions for the devices read-write to all after I couldn't get the sound, but it didn't help either. Originally perms were crw-rw----.

It seems to me it's nothing from those common problems. It seems to me this is something very odd, stupid. I just can't remember what, Please suggest something, I run out of ideas.

Thank you.